


Sometimes You Sink

by EreshkigalIrkalla



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Death, Gen, Grelliam, How do I tag things on this site?, Oh look an angel!, Other, Possibly AU, Reapers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EreshkigalIrkalla/pseuds/EreshkigalIrkalla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dying madwoman ponders her only regret (Well, that and the cat.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes You Sink

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are, first proper fic.
> 
> If anyone knows the name I go by outside of this website, could you please not mention it, and not tell anyone that I have an account here?
> 
> Thank you.

            This is not how she had pictured herself going, splayed out on the ground in the mud and rain.

            Her right side is utterly crushed, and she can hear a slow, wet gurgling every time she inhales. She tastes salt.

            Something must have punctured her lung when she landed, and now here she is lying in the dirt as her lungs slowly fill with her own blood. She is going to drown.

            It’s a grimly romantic image, she thinks, drowning in blood.

            Although to be honest, she never would have pictured it like this. Drowning in blood conjures up images of a maiden floating down a river of crimson, pale hand reaching up above the surface one last time before finally disappearing forever.

            Still though, she thinks, although it lacks in aesthetics, what is happening to her still counts.

            Her chest hurts like hell. She’s certain that her ribs are broken.

            It’s getting harder and harder to breathe.

            Her left side seems to be fine for now, though, which is good, as she happens to be left-handed, something that, despite all of the warnings she had heard and slaps she had received, she could not quite bring herself to fully cover up.

            Damn it. She must’ve hit her head too, her vision is so blurry that she can’t see a thing.

            She reaches out blindly, grasping at nothing a few times before spying something white among the muck.

            There we go.

            Mina?

            She isn’t certain if she’s said it out loud or not. She can’t really hear herself anymore.

            She breathes in and there is a moment of panic when she cannot get enough air in.

            This is it.

            There is no going back. Even the most skilled of surgeons couldn’t save her now, assuming that they could even find her in the bottom of this ravine. She is struck, for a moment of the inevitability of her death now.

            It terrifies her.

            “Mina?” There, she’s certain she heard it that time.

            She reaches out again, and this time she can feel a hand in hers.

            “Mina?”

            She isn’t certain if Mina can hear her, to be honest. Hell, she isn’t even certain if Mina is still alive.

            “I-“ Her voice is cut off by the gurgling of blood in her lungs. Shit.

            She’ll say she’s sorry. That’s all she wants to say.

            Not for what everyone thinks though. She isn’t sorry for the poisoning, or the blood smeared across the walls of Old Man Manners’ house, or the theatre burning down, or the cat that got in her way.

            (Alright, maybe she’s a little sorry about the cat.)

            But she is sorry for Mina.

            Mina with her odd manner, and her odd speech. Mina, who told her outright that she was unquestionably, undoubtedly insane, and if anyone else had said that she would have murdered them, but not Mina. Mina, who chopped her hair short like a boys’ and wore trousers, and to be honest, Miss Grell has never understood why she did any of those things, but she had learned not to question it.

            If there is any regret left in her it is that she got Mina involved in it all.

            And perhaps a little for the cat.

            Her thoughts aren’t working. They aren’t making sense, they aren’t _going_ in a _straight line_ , and she is getting incredibly angry. She tries threatening them, then remembers that one cannot threaten a thought.

            Well, at least she isn’t too far gone yet.

            She blinks, tries to clear her head. She opens her mouth to try and speak one more time, but no sound escapes her throat, and only blood comes out.

            She blinks again, and suddenly she is not looking at the blurred mess at the bottom of the ravine. She is not looking at Mina, either.

            She is looking up, and up, and _up_ , at a figure who stands before her tall enough to pick up the earth on his shoulders.

            It is a man, and it is not a man, for it is too perfect. It glows with a golden light, and is made almost entirely of wings. Upon each wing are a thousand little pink tongues and a thousand eyes, each of them a different colour and shape, and each opening and closing independently of each other, all of them looking down at her.

            This is worse, so much worse than realizing the inevitability of her death. This is a thousand, no, a million, no, a number that she cannot even possibly imagine, times more terrifying.

            It observes her, and if she could still shudder she would be shaking hard enough to break the ground beneath her.

            _Do you know who I am?_

            It speaks without speaking. Nothing is said aloud, and she cannot even begin to wrap her mind around the language it uses, but nevertheless it is clearer than anything she has ever heard.

            She says nothing, simply stares in horror.

            _Do not be afraid_.

            Oh, lord.

            Despite herself she begins to giggle. Or at least, she thinks she does. Her mind is clouded, and if she is remembering it correctly, she is lying up to her nose in mud, drowning from the inside out.

            Surely she hasn’t been _that_ bad.

            Surely, surely, someone has done something worse. Hell, she knows it to be true. So why her?

            _My name is Azrael_.

            She recognizes that name from somewhere, she _knows_ she does. Wait, yes! That’s it. Heaven has come down and now stands before her.

            “I- I expect you want me to apologize, then?” She says. Wait that can’t be right. Her throat is full of blood right now, she can’t be making any noise except for a desperate gurgling.

            Oh, how undignified.

            She giggles again.

            _I want nothing of you_.

            She can feel the golden light radiating from the creature above her hit her face, and it is not the perfection, not the might, not the might, not the power, but the incredible, forgiving, overwhelming _kindness_ that breaks her.

            She thinks she is sobbing.

            “She’s already dead, isn’t she?”

            The angel does not answer.

            “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

            Hold on, how is she talking?

            _Does it?_

            “No, it doesn’t matter. Because I still don’t regret a thing.” Perhaps she isn’t talking, perhaps she is just thinking.

            _Nothing?_

            “Alright, that’s a lie. You already know that though, don’t you?”

            Several eyes blink in succession.

            _You really have done horrible things_.

            There is no anger in that voice, no judgment.

            Her head is spinning something awful. Any clarity she had regained is now gone.

            I’m sorry, Wilhelmina.

            Shit, no voice.

            _Come with me_.

            As if she had a choice.

            _Tell me, would you have preferred it another way?_

            What a stupid question, of course.

            _Then perhaps, it is possible._

What is?

            Her head is muddled now, thoughts reach out to one another but do not reach, hands falling away before they can clasp.

            _Perhaps in another life._

            Is that possible?

            _It depends. What are you willing to give up? For both your life and your friend?_

She snorts at that. Friend.

            She can feel it now, can count the seconds as they approach. She is a hairs-breadth away from being dead.

            She is gone, spiraling outwards, everything is in complete disarray.

            Anything.

**Author's Note:**

> Azrael was said to be the angel of death in Judeo-Christian mythology. It was said that he had as many eyes and tongues as there are people in the world and that every time someone died one eye would close. I figured that he would be a good choice for patron angel of the Reapers, although I doubt they know it.
> 
> In case you're wondering my explanation for everything being mixed up after they were "reborn", it's because I'm going off of a lot of the old legends and God tended to be a real jerk in those, especially towards women.


End file.
